Parts vs. Whole

Do you ever feel sometimes like you're a collection of body parts? I don't mean in the way that women are sometimes objectified; I mean in an aging kind of way, where you feel like the sum — or perhaps division is the better word — of bodily aches and pains?

I do. For years, I've watched my parents aging, and though they don't complain, I know my mother has a very swollen arthritic knee that gives out, my father is in constant shoulder pain, and they have various other ailments that they live with. I'm starting to know exactly how they feel. I have a slightly arthritic right knee, which gets stiff; a rotator cuff injury that hasn't fully healed, and this weekend, I discovered a bump on the white of my eye. A little googling and self-diagnosis reveals that it's a pinquecula, which is more common in middle age, and thought to be caused by (in addition to aging) exposure to UV rays and other elements. It doesn't go away. And it feels like you've got a piece of sand in your eye; or at least mine does.

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Now I live in a sunny climate, where I spend a lot of time wearing sunglasses and a hat, but there were whole periods of my youth where I worked as an outdoor lifeguard – sans hat, sans sunscreen, sans sunglasses, sans anything but baby oil, and I can't help wondering if this set the stage for this latest age-related development.

Or is this kind of thing just going to become more and more frequent? Sometimes I feel like more than the sum of my parts; and sometimes I just feel the parts.